On the travails of tape round-robins

[Ken Josenhans <13020KRJ@MSU>]

     Oh, dear; IED says the location of the Love-Hounds compilation
tape has become indeterminate.   I thought I'd mention my experiences
with a similar tape round-robin which dates back to 1982.
Our group is an ongoing project.  It started out with
10 people and is now up to 17.  In our group, members periodically
assemble a complete cassette of music of current
interest and send it out into the loop.   I always receive cassettes
from Colin in Saskatchewan; I always send cassettes to elessar in
Ann Arbor, who sends them to Gregg in Detroit and so forth.

     However, A Chain Is Only As Strong As Its Weakest Link,
and some of these links are pretty weak indeed.  There are
two problems -- procrastination and losses.  Procrastination
is so bad in our group that complete tape circuits are taking
two years.  I'm a prime culprit here, but I can't listen to
more than a tape a week and I get hopelessly swamped when Colin
dumps 18 tapes on me, as he did between December and February...

     Losses are the more serious problem.  We've had one ex-member
who we suspect retained a few tapes when he dropped out, and another
who we know retained some (because we got them back from his
ex-housemate two years later).  Post office losses are also starting
to seem horrendous, particularly in Philadelphia, where two of my
tapes have gotten lost.  (My overall loss rate is 4 of 7 tapes made.)

     Probably the only things which keep us going are the sheer bulk
of tapes making their way around the country (Our coordinator does an
annual census to get a feeling for tape movement and loss; he thinks
there are about 75 out there) and the fun of hearing something really
fantastic every 3-4 tapes.

     (Please don't ask about joining our group; we're overly full
already, and most of L-H would find most of us to be B.O.F.s...
I only mention this because it might be of interest to those
attempting to circulate the L-H compilation tape.)
--
--Ken Josenhans
    UUCP:  ihnp4!msudoc!krj        P.O. Box 6610
    BITNET:  13020KRJ@MSU          East Lansing, MI  48826